Thomas Aquinas, "The Argument from Efficient
Cause"

Abstract: Thomas' First Cause Argument
for the existence of God is outlined and briefly clarified.
Some standard objections to that argument are listed.

Thomas' Argument from Efficient Cause begins with the
empirical observation of causal sequence in the world.
Hence, this argument is an à posteriori
argument, and the conclusion is not claimed to follow
with certainty.

The Argument from Efficient Cause:

There is an efficient cause for everything; nothing
can be the efficient cause of itself.

It is not possible to regress to infinity in efficient
causes.

To take away the cause is to take away the effect.

If there be no first cause then there will be no
others.

Therefore, a First Cause exists (and this is God).

The nature of causality is a difficult field of study.
Centuries after Thomas, David Hume raises serious objections
to cogency of the concept of causality. Examples illustrating
a few of difficulties of the concept of causality which are
missed by Thomas' notion of the efficient cause of factor are
as follows:

Problem of Accidental Correlation. How can a
distinction be maintained between a universal accidental
correlation and a necessary connection? Simply because
substances or events of the kind B always follow substances
or events of the kind A does not imply that A
caused B.Cf., the variety of the informal fallacy
of False Cause called post hoc
ergo propter hoc. It is conceivable that such a sequence of
generally occurring states of affairs is attributable to an
improbable accidental or chance series of occurrences or is
attributable to factors other than causality.

Problem of Simultaneous Causation If actual causal
relations are examined closely, any supposed causal connection
would be seen to be instantaneous.

Immanuel Kant cites these examples:

If I view as a cause a ball which impresses a
hollow as it lies on a stuffed cushion, the cause is
simultaneous with the effect. Critique of Pure
Reason (A203=B248) … A glass [filled with water]
is the cause of the rising of the water above its
horizontal surface, although both appearances are
simultaneous. Critique of Pure Reason (A204=B249).

Note that if the coupling of the cars of a train to
the locomotive are rigid and the parts of the train are not
elastic, as soon as the engine moves, the caboose moves.
There would be no gap in time.

We say the vibration of a string on a musical instrument
causes a sound, but the string does not vibrate first
followed later by the sound.

Consider the striking of a match causes the match to
light. If we look closely,
there are actually an indefinite number of sequences of
causes as friction of the striking causes the rapid vibration
of red phosphorus atoms which in turn are
transferred individually to the sulphur compounds and then
individually to the molecules of wood. The sequential
agitation of chemicals may be analyzed as moving
at the speed of light among an indefinite number of
points of ignition—which, from an Einsteinian point
of view, can be seen as instantaneous.

Finally, consider how old the universe would be if
causes are simultaneous with their effects. Time would
seem to be an illusion.

Problem of Uncaused Events. Consider Thomas' sequence
of causes. The cement of the universe (to use David Hume's
phrase) is not just a linear sequence. If
the sequence of causes were infinite, there would be no
cause which was " taken away."

Causality can be seen as a web of interrelated events whereby
each event is connected to each and every other event
directly or remotely. (Any loose end or non-connected event
would count as an event not subject to the laws of nature
and so would be a miracle.)

To list all of the conditions for the occurrence of an
event would be to include a description of the state of the
universe down to the location and momentuum of each and every
elementary bit of physical substance.

There might be different lines of webs of causality
leadings to multiple first causes.

Finally, of course, there is no proof that a First Cause is
the same entity as the beings noted in the conclusion of the
other Five Ways.

Summary list of common objections to Thomas' Argument from Cause:

There seems to be a contradiction in the argument. The
first premise states, "There is an efficient cause for
everything, nothing can be the efficient cause of itself."
Is, then, God something or nothing? If God is something,
then we can ask the question of children, "What caused
God?" If God is nothing, then God's existence is not
proven. If God is claimed to have a privileged status,
then the argument becomes viciously circular.

Thomas oversimplifies the nature of causality in terms of a
temporal sequence of causes. Contemporary physics (as the best
epistemological result to date) has many different
notions of relations of events—including no causality
(only correlations between events), simultaneous causation,
backward causation, causation at a distance (cf.,
Bell's Theorem
or quantum entanglement), or merely mathematical
description.

By Occam's Razor,
(the principle of simplicity or the principle of parsimony),
we cannot assume that time has a beginning, middle, and end
as assumed by Thomas' argument on the historical basis of
Aristotle's description of plot
in his Poetics,. If we assume that the universe was
always existent, we do not have to account for a beginning.
The early Greek philosophers, for example, did
not assume there was a beginning of time.As Isaac Newton
points out in his "Rules for Reasoning in Philosophy":

Rule I.
We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such
as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.
To this purpose the philosophers say that Nature does nothing
in vain, and more is in vain when less will serve; for Nature
is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous
causes.

By the principle of simplicity, it is arguable that an
infinite regress in causes is more reasonable than the notion of
an infinite, all powerful God who created a world with non-moral
evil (i.e., "acts of God" such as flood, hurricane,
earthquake, or plague). If God is perfect as a cause, so must be
the effects of that cause. And, as well, since causes are proportioned
to the effect, the Deity must be as finite as the universe is
finite. Again, as Isaac Newton points out in his "Rules for
Reasoning in Philosophy":

Rule II.
Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as
possible, assign the same causes. As to respiration in a
man and in a beast; the descent of stones [meteorites)
in Europe and in America; the light of our culinary fire
and of the sun; the reflection of light in the earth, and in
the planets.

If the first premise "There is an efficient cause for
everything; nothing can be the efficient cause of itself"
is true, then the occurrence of miracles is ruled out. A
miracle is a violation of a law of nature. Ruling out miracles
is not something Thomas would want to do.

One can envision many possibilities. Even if there were a
first cause, it would not necessarily follow that this first cause
was God any more than the second cause in the sequence is God.
It could be that there are many gods as first causes. It could
be that the universe of causes circle back on itself so that
there is no first cause, but every effect has a cause.

Also, it does not follow that the first cause would be the
same entity as the conclusion of the other arguments: Unmoved Mover,
Necessary Being, Greatest Good, or Great Designer. A separate
argument would be necessary to
show that all these "gods" are the same God.

Fallacy of Composition. Simply because causality
occurs within the universe, it does not logically
follow there must be a grand cause for the exisence of all of
the separate causes in the whole universe. Moreover,
Thomas' assertion that "To take away the cause is to take
away the effect" would not hold for an infinite regress of
causes since there is no cause taken away.

“Causation
in the Seventeenth Century” Willis Doney in the Dictionary
of the History of Ideas maintained by the Electronic Text
Center at the University of Virginia Library discusses contrast of
the causal ideas of Hume, Bacon, Hobbes, and Boyle with those of
Descartes, Malebranche, and Spinoza. The article concludes with
a summary of the notions of force used by Newton and Leibniz.

Cause. A
discussion of causality in Greek, Scholastic, and Modern thought is
outlined in the Catholic
Encyclopedia. A short summary
of Hegel's and Schopenhauer's doctrines together with cause in science,
common sense, and the law is also included.

Cycles.
A history of the theory that cosmological and historical events
recur on a regular basis is traced by George Boas in the
Dictionary of the History of Ideas.

Spooky
Action at a Distance: An Explanation of Bell's Theorem. An
explanation of the history and experiments supporting
Bell's Theorem. One commonly cited result is how one electon of
a pair can instantaneously affect the other electron of the pair
million of miles away. This clear account by Gary Felder requires
only high-school math.

What
is Occam's Razor? A summary of the variety of ways Occam's Razor
and related principles have been interpreted by philosophers and scientists
is described by Phil Gibbs and updated by Sugihara Hiroshi.

“If everything must have a cause, then God must have
a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may
just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any
validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature
as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and
the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said,
‘How about the tortoise?’ the Indian said, ’Suppose
we change the subject.’ Bertrand Russell, Why I Am
Not a Christian, and Other Essays (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1957), 6-7.